Running workshops at Designs in Mind, Oswestry

The vision of Designs in Mind is: Open to everyone, together we are finding ways to live life and challenge mental health stigma.

And their Mission? – High quality, ambitious, experimental art and design work and support to make independent ambition a reality.

We – Paul Kielty and Nadia Kingsley – were absolutely delighted to partner up with this nationally-respected social enterprise in Oswestry, Shropshire – thanks to support through public funding by Arts Council England, and as part of our Painting by Pixels project – and run workshops in how to make drawings and paintings on their tablet, iPad, or mobile phone.

The challenges for Paul, Nadia, and the workshop participants were mainly technical. Several of the members who signed up for the workshops didn’t have a mobile device that could download the drawing app we were using – because they were either too slow and simple a device, or in the case of ipads, in particular, they were too old – and could not cope with the updated apps; and wouldn’t accept old versions that we managed to source. We came prepared with our own tablets and phones so noone was ever without a mobile device they could use in the session.

Once we overcame these issues we all had a lot of fun!

We were absolutely delighted to see some of the members fall in love with this way of making art and “run with it” – making lots of artworks inbetween the workshops.

But the members who came along to the sessions to just doodle and play were equally as pleasing to see